Souls to Catch: A Brief Interlude
by RadariG
Summary: Summer affords thoughts, and for Harry, these thoughts usher in an odd voice. More unfortunate is the disposition of said voice.


Foreword:  
  
Well, hello. To be quite frank, I've never really tried to write anything in narrative form outside of classes. Most writing I've done has been script-styled dialogue/action prompts for comic strips. Anyway, after dealing with the shortfalls of this system, I decided that I might want to approach it as one might approach writing a short story. However, realizing that I wanted to get it right, I have come to the conclusion that I would be benefited by a brief try at fanfiction. Thus, the words you're now reading. I hope to learn from the feedback, and thank you in advance. (  
  
"Souls to Catch: A Brief Interlude"  
  
.INTRODUCTION.  
  
To many children and teenagers, summer represents a vague conception of what pure happiness should look and feel like. At the end of the season, however, most are strapped to come up with any conception of what they did to make it anything of any note at all. In the end, it seems, summer dies at the hands of the bitter fall.  
  
If the spring is birth and the winter is death, what of summer and fall?  
  
Life falls between the birth of a man and his inevitable demise. So, one might argue, summer represents the growth of the person, the accession into adulthood. Fall could then represent the decay from prime, a slow, tedious march to the final bell.  
  
So it would seem that the reason children love summer so very much might have something to do with the fact that they are in the process of attaining their adulthood, they are perhaps in the summer of their lives.  
  
Of course, the freedom from the bonds of school might have something to do with it.  
  
This is not to say these feelings ring true for everybody. For a teenager, lying in the grass not far from his aunt and uncle's house, summer seemed more and more like imprisonment every year. As he stared at the infinite ceilings of the clear sky, he did not entertain the feelings that he had equally boundless paths in his life.  
  
One path seemed to stretch before him, alone in the darkness of some foreboding forest.  
  
For Harry Potter, there was no escaping the conflict that destiny had seemingly forced upon him. As far as he could tell, fate was throwing him to the same dark lions it had thrown his parents so many years ago.  
  
Over and over again this summer, Harry had contemplated the possible actions he could take in the upcoming years. On one hand, he could continue acting the way he had the past five years; pushing aside the barrier of his own well-being, as well as that of others, to do what? Play the hero? Increasingly he had begun to realize that for some perverse reason deep within him, he WANTED to be a savior. There were reasons for this, reasons that permeated his very being, but at the time all Harry could do was to throw out the vague notion that he was reckless, an egotistical glory-hog.  
  
On the other hand of his possible actions, Harry thought about playing it safe. No more adventures, no more dangerous sports, no more pondering theoretic on the goals and plans of the man who sought to kill him without notifying at least three teachers about his ideas. They WERE proving to be quite accurate, after all . . .  
  
But just then, a voice intersected with his train of thought in a rather abrupt manner.  
  
"You don't get it," the odd voice scolded.  
  
Harry stumbled to his feet and nervously darted his eyes in every direction.  
  
"Who said that?" Harry rattled in surprise. After a moment, he realized that it wasn't exactly the oddest thing that had ever happened, so he said, in a voice of extremely forced calm, "What is it that I don't get?"  
  
A few seconds of eerie silence ensued, but the voice eventually responded.  
  
"Pah! Potter, you are too close-minded to realize anything of any real importance. Always getting your bookworm friend back at school to do all the thinking for you. You could fit your brain in a freaking thimble."  
  
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but his idea was once again squashed by the speech of the bodiless voice.  
  
"I mean, just listen to your thoughts! You're actively aware of your fate, but instead of focusing on what you KNOW of it, you're looking onwards to the outcome."  
  
At this point, Harry thought of something Hermione had once said about hearing voices.  
  
The voice was not impressed that the young wizard had chosen yet again to think through the bookworm, and repeated its earlier statement about the thimble.  
  
To be continued. 


End file.
